Category: Uncategorized

wonderlust photoworks in collaboration with @suspendedinlight – Assisted Self-Portraits (2017)

Over the last three years or so, I’ve dabbled a bit with street photography. Alas, the only camera I have that I’m fast enough with is a panoramic camera–which is not exactly well-suited to that task.

Really, though–what’s stopped me is that there are just issues of consent with street photography that I find increasingly disturbing.

The idea for these emerged partly from an urge for the challenge of street photography style work–quick thinking on your feet, rapid response, etc; the other part was I’m always looking for ways to reduce the amount of time I allow myself to over-thinking things; and, from the vantage of procedure, I’m interested in minimizing my imposition on the work.

The notion here was that I hand a cable release to the subject–in this case Lyndsie–and she chooses the moment the photo is taken. I merely have to keep her in frame and in focus.

It was such a revelation to work this way that I’ve actually instituted it as a sort of icebreaker every time I collaborate with someone.

Year Six

I started this blog on November 15, 2012.

The “why?” of it was simple: I was spending approximately five hours a week perusing a handful of Tumblrs. The way it seemed to me was if I was going to be on here anyway, I might as well figure out how to be an active participant in the community.

I’ve never been fond of the ontology of self-definition as substitute for self-knowing that social media tends to preference, i.e. what I post reflects my personal aesthetic which in a digital, curated space indicates something about me as a person–sort of like how you can tell certain things about people you’ve never met by walking through their house. (Or, in terms of tl:dr–self-definition is like trying to bite your own teeth.)

I wasn’t making any sort of work at that time. Thus, it wasn’t like I could just unload a bunch of my creative efforts on Tumblr. Further, I was suffering from the most intense bout of writer’s block I’ve ever had. Starting a Tumblr felt like a way that I could kill two stones with one bird. But what would it be about? It seemed obvious–the age old cliche about writing about what you know. So I began reblogging work I found on Tumblr that I liked and forcing myself to explain why I liked it.

Six years later: I’m still struggling with the same writer’s block. It may be difficult to believe–given that for the last 3 years, I’ve averaged a post a day–but writing is a challenge for me. It’s one thing to yammer on and on about why I like something, or more often why I dislike something. But fiction and poetry remain obstructed channels for me. I’m not sure how to remedy that. (In fairness, it does–knock on wood–seem to be improving by minute increments over extended periods of time.)

Had someone told me that six years later, I’d have several thousands followers and several true blue friends I became acquainted with as a direct result of this project–I would have called you a liar.

But here I am–facing down the start of a sixth year.

As for what that sixth year entails?–I honestly have no goddamn clue.

I’ve wanted to push this project in new directions for several years. Last year, I vowed to bring on a guest curator every other month. Unfortunately, between me being very picky and insistent about preference femme and queer folks and the fact that literally no one seems to return messages any more… that didn’t happen.

I also had the idea of making a series of videos focused on the process of artists who I consider to be vital, emerging talents. Again, I reached out to four different folks last year–not a single response.

Additionally, I would like to start asking artists for permission to feature their work. I’ve wanted to do this for ages. It is–straight up–not something which is feasible given the current shape of thing, sadly.

The truth is: the work that goes into the average post-a-day pace equates to a minimum of 25 hours of work each week. (This year I’ve been averaging 32 hours a week–which means I have, effectively, 2 full-time jobs.) This. Is. Not. Sustainable. Long. Term.

I’ll never make this a paid endeavor. To do so would be enormously unethical. At the same time, if you do get something out of what I do here, it’s a boon when folks support this project via Patreon.

The next year is going to be crazy for me. I’m facing a big move–and a lot of uncertainty with my employment as a result of that move. I’m applying to several MFA programs, also.

Perhaps it’s naive but I had hoped that at a certain point this project could get to a point where I use it to supplement my income so that I can dedicate more time to this as well as more personal and creative endeavors.

I don’t to make promises I’m not sure that I can actually keep but in the next year, if things don’t shift in the next three months–there is going to have to be a decrease in the number of posts. Hopefully, that will mean fewer posts but the posts that appear will include more rigorous analysis and commentary.

I have actually begun work on that Hans Bellmer/Ana Mendieta joint retrospective I’ve mentioned a few times. The notion being that I will feature that for 15 to 20 posts sometime in the spring. (It may take longer–all the extant scholarly work on Bellmer is so imbued with Freudian horseshit, that it’s proving to be more of a slog than I anticipated. Further, the scholarship on Mendieta is unbelievably lacking.)

I’m also putting together a curriculum for an online seminar on photographic praxis with an emphasis on photography in an art historical context.

Anyway, thank you so much for following. Seriously. I’d be screaming in the wilderness, either way. But it’s really nice to know that this seems to matter to folks.

Be well,

-e

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

This is almost certainly an homage to Nobuyoshi Araki’s 1993 Erotos series. (Araki is someone about whom I have entirely mixed feelings; yet even I can admit the series is something special.)

I’ve thought about just leaving it there but it occurs to me that there’s a parallel between this and Greta Gerwig’s directoral debut Lady Bird–which is also something truly special.

If you don’t really follow cinema, Gerwig has made a name for herself as both an astute and incisive actress as well as a startlingly original writer–she co-wrote and played the titular roles in Noah Baumbach’s Frances HA and Mistress America.

Anyway, Lady Bird is every bit as good as you’ve heard. Yes, it’s gallingly lily white. And as much as diversity and inclusion are of crucial importance, Lady Bird aces the Bechdel test in a way that few other things have had the audacity to even consider.

In fairness, I should also confess my own bias: as someone who went to a parochial school (and had much the same relationship to it that Lady Bird does), who felt stultified in my mid-Atlantic, white bread hometown; further, as someone who managed to escape that town by gaining admission to a prestigious liberal arts program, the story was unnervingly resonant for me. (Also, it was like a peak at what my life might have been like if I’d grown up female–as a trans girl, it made me feel seen in a way that I’ve never experienced in my life, if that makes sense.)

Anyway, minimal spoilers ahead: there are three scenes in Lady Bird that run parallel to this image: In the first, Lady Bird (portrayed with an utterly incandescent lack of self-consciousness and vulnerability by the staggeringly talented Saoirse Ronan) is laying on the floor at her prestigious catholic school next to her best friend. They are both on their backs with their legs propped up against the wall snacking on pilfered communion wafers.

The viewer joins the scene en media res and while it’s clear they are talking about using the faucet in the tub to masturbate–their candor is intriguing. Lady Bird is trying to seem cool and worldly, but it’s her friend that actually centers the conversation in the politics of self-pleasure not as an exercise in social conformity but as a means of enjoyment. There is nothing salacious or even remotely titillating about the scene.  It’s solely focused on the way teenage girls talk about their experiences of being embodied with each other employing a guileless openness and trust.

But like everything in the movie, the jokes are polysemous–frequently doubling as self-deprecating asides directed to the audience, who is given the advantage of something closer to third person author omniscences w/r/t the narrative.

During a later scene, the viewer is shown the faucet of a tub. A bare leg enters the frame and braces against the pink tile beside the faucet. It’s clear that it’s Lady Bird’s leg due to the pastel polish on her toenails. It doesn’t hold on the shot. It’s presented matter-of-factly, devoid of any lecherous voyuerism–however, in the context of it’s function as a call back it’s honesty is thorougly disarming.

In a scene approaching the end, Lady Bird is called into the Mother Superior’s office–ostensibly for disciplinary proceedings. The nun, however, is far more interested in the psychology than the behavior. She tells Lady Bird that she was impressed with the way she describes Sacramento in such vibrant detail in her college admission essay that she seems as if she rather loves the place. (An on-going joke in the movie is how she considers the city the mid-west of California.) So it’s surprising for both her and the viewer to hear this interpretation.

Lady Bird realizes her typical brusqueness on the subject will not be well met, so she–brilliantly–counters with: I guess I just pay attention to things.

Without missing a beat the nun responds: some might say that loving something and paying attention are, in fact, the same thing.

I keep returning to what the nun said: paying attention and loving are two manifestation for the same underlying truth.

But back to the image–because no matter all the extraneous stuff I routinely throw at you to try to keep your attention–the reason you read this is because it’s supposed to relate to the work showcased.

I won’t argue that this is a good image. At the very least: it isn’t an image that’s easy to immediately digest. You look at it. Think wait. Did I see that right? Look again. Yes, it’s what I thought it was the first time. Wait, are you sure? Look again.

It occurs to me that the image above is erotic only in so far as it invites sustained attention–even if it’s only decoding how things are oriented in the frame. And to me that suggests a potentially worthwhile framework for disguishing pornography, from erotica, from art. Porngraphy is a specific text in framed in a more generalized context–heteronormative patriarchal expectations with regard to libido, lust and physical intimacy. Erotica is less focused on the specificity of the given text and more concerned with the expansive context. Whereas, art, is–in some ways–entirely focused on the marginalia expounded and clarifying the relationship and interpenetration between text and context.

There’s a saying that the mind is the body’s largest erogenous zone. The only way to stimulate the mind is by paying attention–by loving.

Source: 669convict

Vlastimil Kula – Untitled (2004)

Henri Cartier-Bresson famously admitted to staging many of his best known photographs. This? Staged. This? Same.

It’s ironic that as one of the first to pinoneer the genre of street photography, that his work pretty much flew in the face of many of the subsequently codified conventions of that genre.

Personally, I could take or leave his work. But I do think his staged photos are better for their contrivance–I think that’s why so many people revere his work: it unified the criteria for what made a good street photograph with what distinguished an objectively good photograph.

This image is staged as fuck–and not in a good way. (HCB, at least, staged his shots so that there was an easily apprehended logic to the blocking and composition of the shot.) This is… I mean… if she’s going to get into that tub, it’s going to overflow. Also, the way she’s pulling off her top is something you’d expect of the overly theatrical way you’d expect to see someone perform a striptease. (This runs counter to the placement and framing of the camera which logically suggests surreptitious voyeurism.)

What I did find interesting about this is that the level of water in the tub, immediately made me think of Archimedes and his Eureka! moment–wherein he realized that you can determine the volume of an object by the amount of water it displaces, i.e. buoyancy.)

I think conceptually it’s interesting that buoyancy tells you about what is there by what is not. (The displaced water indicates the volume of the object that displaced it.) Reflections show you what’s there but reversed–left is right, right is left.

This is also complimentary to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle that states the more accurately we know the position of a molecule that less we know about it’s momentum and vice versa. It’s as if measuring things in terms of other more easily grasped things automatically becomes more difficult with the increasing complexity of the system being measured. (My feeling is this relates to Wittgenstein’s aim in Philosophical Investigations. And while I’m not in love with this photo–it’s kind of salaciousness for the sake of being salacious, and otherwise hollow–I do feel like it prodded my brain in an interesting direction.)

wonderlust photoworks in collaboration with @suspendedinlight – [↑] Loom; [←] Darkness Suspending in Light; [→] Baba Yaga (2017)

I have about a half dozen or so frames from this shoot I’m still in the process of editing–but I wanted to get these out there ahead of anything else.

This shoot was one of the most fun I’ve ever had–I love working with other artists but more than anything I prefer working with friends–and Lyndsie has become one of my nearest and dearest over the last year. (She’s so amazing talented and has this freaking magnificent mind and she totally gets *it*.)

The top photo was a riff on this. It’s a bit more inscrutable than I envisioned, but the more I’ve worked with it the more that is perhaps the point of the disorienting perspective. The title cemented it; I’m all about multivalent wordplay–it can be Lyndsie’s relationship to the viewer; or, the device used to weave materials into cloth (using such a device is not an inconcievable reason for her hand’s to be positioned in that way); or the part of an oar between the handle and the paddle (betweenness or, if you will: fulcrum as tool).

To me there’s something magical about it, something witch-like. (Truthfully the entire thing emerged out of me not being able to shake the fact that she’s playing a harp and the similarities between the harp and the loom and how Lyndsie as an visual artist and musician is on both sides of that.

The bottom left was totally making shit up as I went along. Lyndsie sat down and there was something powerful and playful about her demeanor that I wanted to document. I set up the camera and was so obsessed with getting her eyelight just so (check it out–so proud of myself for that!). I didn’t see the reflection until I first gazed at the slides through a loupe.

The photo on the bottom right was based on a dream I had. We played around until we got something that felt right and we took one frame. If you look close it’s not quite in focus–my 6×9 camera took a tumble in Iceland and the focus is just a touch softer now. But it gives it this very David Lynch like haze that makes it more obviously homage to Lynch then any of the half dozen other things in the frame I meant to specifically reference Lynch. So… sometimes I’m my own worst enemy, sometimes I’m looking out for myself against my own ‘genius’ ideas.

There you have it: a peak into my own creative process.

#1550

A great amount of privilege goes into enabling a project like this–which despite frequent artsy aspirations, is effectively a sex/porn Tumblr. Bearing this in mind, I pause things every 50 posts to touch on the reality of the broader context in which this blog–for better or worse–exists.

Like so many of us, I’m completely overwhelmed when it comes to keeping up with current events. It was a Herculean undertaking before this year but the present regime in my country–it is virtually impossible to keep all the whirring chainsaws of day-to-day news in the air without dropping a baker’s dozen in the process. It’s goddamn fucking exhausting.

Here are some stories that I feel were either under-reporter or deserve to be borne in mind going forward.

Next, the president gave the key note address to the Value Voters Summit last month. For those that do not know, the Value Voters Summit is organized by the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group. During his statement he once again concept-checked his intention to “stop cold” (non-existent) attacks on Judeo-Xtian values.

Shortly after that the story about Harvey Weinstein’s predatory history dropped; this, in turn, spurred the #MeToo movement. I’m pretty sure if you’re reading this you are aware of this story but I did want to take a point to remind everyone that when accounts of sexual harassment and sexual assault: you should always believe women. Additionally, I think that the conservative backlash over this is endemic of everything I loathe most about that particular prism, they completely overlook the fact that a number of women have accused the Predator-in-Chief of sexual assault–most publicly.

The White House has taken the official position that all these women are lying–despite the fact that much like Weinstein there is a clear pattern of overlap between the accusations.

Also, while we are on the subject it’s probably a good time to revisit the episode of Last Week Tonight that aired immediately after the 2016 election–where Oliver points out that essentially the conservative ideology increasingly demands acknowledging of “alternative facts”, or: opinion are more factual than actual facts. (Consider these two Vice stories on a right-wing militia and Antifa in Philadelphia. Vice is certainly not unbiased. But they do give the former group the benefit of the doubt that they are ‘intelligent’ despite their counter-factual interpretation of history and complete detachment from present day social reality; whereas, the Antifa group are depicted as pretentious and a bit histrionic.)

Another big story has been how the Predator-in-Chief botched a call to the widow of La David Johnson. (Keep in mind that this is the same man who somehow managed to co-opt sports stars kneeling during the national anthem and transform it from a campaign to promote awareness about police brutality toward PoC into an anti-military, anti-American protest that it never was.) A lot of the public wrestling over this is to cover for the fact that by all accounts what happened in Niger is actually far, far more fucked up than Benghazi.

As everyone knows, the first indictments from Mueller’s special prosecution into collusion between the Predator-in-Chief’s campaign and Russia have emerged. I’m not going to get into that. But there have been some interesting developments with the how Russia meddled with the election. If you read between the lines in this article, the implications are fucking chilling.

In two local bits of news, there was an attack in NYC. A guy in a truck entered a bike path and killed 8. The NYTimes did something I found remarkably astute–acknowledging the current climate of fomented Islamophobia but reporting the assailant screamed “God is great” in Arabic. I’m increasingly disappointed with the NYTimes’ centrism, but that was a good call on the part of the editorial board.

Also, independent media here in NYC took a big hit on Thursday. Gothamist and DNAinfo were shuttered on November 2nd. As of this writing, the archive of stories they’ve published still remains unavailable. It’s widely scene that this move was made more in retaliation for the staff voting to unionize and less for the PR reasons of the businesses not being profitable.

There’s a draconian abortion bill that’s been introduced to the US House or Representatives (on top of the reverse Robin Hood tax plan that’s seemingly DOA, like all the rest of the Predator-in-Chief’s legislative efforts thus far–thankfully); it would outlaw abortions after 6 weeks. In practice, this would mean–assuming the person is especially conscientious–they would have two to three weeks to seek an abortion after learning they were pregnant; in most cases, you would find out you were pregnant and have days to make a decision–in certain states without reliable access to abortion, this would mean you would be required to carry the fetus to term.

And, with the hundreds upon hundreds of reasons to justifiably criticism Sarah Huckabee Sanders, fat shaming her should never be one of them. (I’m 0% surprised that it was a man who thought it was a good idea to attack Sanders for being ‘fat’.)

Enough with this shit sandwich on turd bread, I have actually saved too feel good stories to help ameliorate this gloom and doom.

Califonia voted to recognize a non-binary third gender!! :::blowing kisses to my future home state:::

And, in a down ballot race I’m watching closing, trans person and metal band front woman Danica Roem is running for the Virginia state House of Delegates. Noisey did a profile on her and she sounds like someone I’d adore. I’m super rooting for her. EDIT: FUCK  YEAH!!!! SHE WON!!!